QuoteReplyTopic: How did you find these bands? Posted: March 27 2013 at 11:09

I asked my father the other day if he had heard of some of the 70's prog acts I listen to. To name a few, King Crimson, Hawkwind, Gentle Giant, Caravan... And he said no.

This absolutely baffled me, because his music, in general is proggy! David Bowie, Queen, Bryan Ferry. So I suppose, what I'm asking here is, how was it marketed back then? I was told "We didn't have the internet back then to discover music, we just made do''. And it made me wonder, how people found out about these bands? As I'm guessing it was just as niche then as it is now.

Does that make sense?

(By the way, I don't just mean those select few, I mean the whole prog scene, obviously there's a ton of bands/musicians that were active at the time)

I'd have to say (and kudos to the marketing departments), but a lot of the prog bands I followed in the '70s were because of some really striking cover art! It's one of those "the cover's cool so the music must be great!" kind of things.

I got into prog in the 80s, not the 70s, but it was still pre-internet. I discovered a lot of that stuff by way of the Rolling Stone Record Guide. I read that book from cover to cover several times. Even that had pretty skimpy coverage of prog, but it was a start.

My other avatar is a Porsche

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.

I met the right people but was never happy with the singles chart so never really liked much "popular" music. Although anyone buying the music press would be aware of anothyer world besides the charts.

For me it was also the 80's and two things: Asia first which introduced me to Yes and Wetton-era King Crimson, then hearing ELP's "Still... You Turn Me On" on the radio. The writing, the layering of the sound (Greg Lake's production) just made me want to hear more from that band. Got a couple of their albums over the next few days, then just went on to the other prog bands.

For me it was Ummagumma by Pink Floyd. I saw the album and on the back, all the various instruments laid out. I had to hear what it sounded like and I was hooked. Then when I heard Roundabout by Yes on the radio, there was no turning back.

I asked my father the other day if he had heard of some of the 70's prog acts I listen to. To name a few, King Crimson, Hawkwind, Gentle Giant, Caravan... And he said no.

This absolutely baffled me, because his music, in general is proggy! David Bowie, Queen, Bryan Ferry. So I suppose, what I'm asking here is, how was it marketed back then? I was told "We didn't have the internet back then to discover music, we just made do''. And it made me wonder, how people found out about these bands? As I'm guessing it was just as niche then as it is now.

Does that make sense?

(By the way, I don't just mean those select few, I mean the whole prog scene, obviously there's a ton of bands/musicians that were active at the time)

Ha! Prog was HUGELY popular back then! Singles by Yes, ELP, Focus, Flash and other bands received as much airplay back then as Justin Bieber does today! Rock magazines like Circus were full of news about Yes, Genesis etc.

National tours by prog bands were some of the largest events in rock, filling the largest venues in big cities! Many records were broken by Yes and ELP. My first prog concert was Yes CTTE, 22 September, 1972 (with an unknown band called "The Eagles" opening for them!).

Back then, we had "record stores" and the best ones had many bins of import albums. That is how I learned about Magma, Amon Duul II and other bands in 1973. There were also underground radio stations, like the very progressive and hugely popular TRIAD radio in Chicago. See this page for the history of "freeform radio"

I asked my father the other day if he had heard of some of the 70's prog acts I listen to. To name a few, King Crimson, Hawkwind, Gentle Giant, Caravan... And he said no.

This absolutely baffled me, because his music, in general is proggy! David Bowie, Queen, Bryan Ferry. So I suppose, what I'm asking here is, how was it marketed back then? I was told "We didn't have the internet back then to discover music, we just made do''. And it made me wonder, how people found out about these bands? As I'm guessing it was just as niche then as it is now.

Does that make sense?

(By the way, I don't just mean those select few, I mean the whole prog scene, obviously there's a ton of bands/musicians that were active at the time)

Ha! Prog was HUGELY popular back then! Singles by Yes, ELP, Focus, Flash and other bands received as much airplay back then as Justin Bieber does today! Rock magazines like Circus were full of news about Yes, Genesis etc.

My older brothers found prog for me, and how they found, I don't know.

I did forget a bit about prog in my teenage years, and through a Rock Encyclopedia that I bought, age 20, I discovered Genesis and Traffic. I recognised the old Genesis records from my youth and got into buying them.

A friend of mine who was into countryrock said: you'll probably going to like Yes too. I tried out the old albums and once again it was déjà vu, or better: déjà entendu: I recognised all the albums of my early youth.

A sister of a friend of mine, who was into Bartok, put on an ELP record and I recognised the music from when I was a kid.

So I rediscovered all the prog gems of my youth and became an active prog fan myself.

In 1987 I went to the Genesis' Invisible Touch tour and there I met someone who promoted a prog magazine. I became a subscriber, and from then on, I discovered all the neo prog bands beside Marillion.

From 1994 on, when I discovered the internet, I tried out websites of bands that I knew.

I often went to the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock (GEPR).

Some Prog bands and albums were as popular as, say, Radiohead or Dream Theater have been in more recent years. For people following a bit what's going on in the music world besides the radio mainstream hits it's not too hard to discover that this music exists. So for example I'm pretty sure that your father knew about DSOTM, Wish You Were Here or Tubular Bells.

Then it's a matter of how much one likes those popular records, those who liked them got to dig a bit further and discovered GG, Crimson or Caravan, but for people who were not particularly attracted by those best known records most of Prog remained obscure and they were happy listening to Bowie, Queen, Lou Reed, Deep Purple etc.

At any rate it was quite popular, if you would go to some party and scrolled through the albums brought by the people, I can tell you that you would surely find some Yes album, Floyd, Camel, ELP, Who etc.

I did not discover prog until the mid to late 80s, though i had superficially been aware of it when i was young in the seventies. A friend lent me some prog albums in 1985, and then i became, as one friend put it, "the beating heart of the used record stores of my city".
I bought big names, and also took gambles on very obscure albums. Though the cover of a record is not the most important thing, it was a pretty big factor in what i decided to gamble on.
My prog listening and awareness just mushroomed from then on.

Mahler's 7th Symphony-like the Soundtrack to a serious operation that is going really well.

I asked my father the other day if he had heard of some of the 70's prog acts I listen to. To name a few, King Crimson, Hawkwind, Gentle Giant, Caravan... And he said no.

This absolutely baffled me, because his music, in general is proggy! David Bowie, Queen, Bryan Ferry. So I suppose, what I'm asking here is, how was it marketed back then? I was told "We didn't have the internet back then to discover music, we just made do''. And it made me wonder, how people found out about these bands? As I'm guessing it was just as niche then as it is now.

Does that make sense?

(By the way, I don't just mean those select few, I mean the whole prog scene, obviously there's a ton of bands/musicians that were active at the time)

Ha! Prog was HUGELY popular back then! Singles by Yes, ELP, Focus, Flash and other bands received as much airplay back then as Justin Bieber does today! Rock magazines like Circus were full of news about Yes, Genesis etc.

Not in the UK it wasn't. Most kids never heard of those bands

It was a strange situation then. Shows such as Top of the Pops were full of glam, crappy "soul" music from the States, and corny pop.

However, the music press then regarded what we call prog or art rock as the epitome, and shows such as Old Grey Whistle Test catered for serious music fans. When Rick Wakeman appeared on this, aided by a news dispute on BBC1, he became an overnight star.

Bands such as Yes, Led Zep, The Who, Deep Purple et al sold albums by the truckload. Serious bands sold out gigs at large venues.

I asked my father the other day if he had heard of some of the 70's prog acts I listen to. To name a few, King Crimson, Hawkwind, Gentle Giant, Caravan... And he said no.

This absolutely baffled me, because his music, in general is proggy! David Bowie, Queen, Bryan Ferry. So I suppose, what I'm asking here is, how was it marketed back then? I was told "We didn't have the internet back then to discover music, we just made do''. And it made me wonder, how people found out about these bands? As I'm guessing it was just as niche then as it is now.

Does that make sense?

(By the way, I don't just mean those select few, I mean the whole prog scene, obviously there's a ton of bands/musicians that were active at the time)

Ha! Prog was HUGELY popular back then! Singles by Yes, ELP, Focus, Flash and other bands received as much airplay back then as Justin Bieber does today! Rock magazines like Circus were full of news about Yes, Genesis etc.

Not in the UK it wasn't. Most kids never heard of those bands

It was a strange situation then. Shows such as Top of the Pops were full of glam, crappy "soul" music from the States, and corny pop.

However, the music press then regarded what we call prog or art rock as the epitome, and shows such as Old Grey Whistle Test catered for serious music fans. When Rick Wakeman appeared on this, aided by a news dispute on BBC1, he became an overnight star.

Bands such as Yes, Led Zep, The Who, Deep Purple et al sold albums by the truckload. Serious bands sold out gigs at large venues.

I don't deny it. But at school. most of my contempraries didn't delve into these bands.

King Crimson - My dad had a guitar book that mentioned several guitarists, one of them being Robert Fripp. Not long after that, I was exposed to most of In The Court Of The Crimson King via AOL Radio.

Gentle Giant - My dad wanted me to listen to Three Friends. I wasn't too interested, but there were some parts I really liked. It wasn't until I delved further into their output that I stared listening to it more often.

Van Der Graaf Generator - I liked the computer game Lemmings and was curious if there was a song titled "Lemmings" - don't know why, I just wanted to. I think these guys were the first to pop up.

He looks at this world and wants it all... so he strikes, like Thunderball!

I was fortunate to have some friends who were into prog when I was at school. So a lot of discoveries were from them and word of mouth generally.

As has been mentioned already, in the seventies prog was pretty mainstream and was on radio and TV. I discovered a lot of great stuff listening to the likes of Alan Freeman on Radio 1 and watching The Old Grey Whistle Test on BBC2. What memories !

As a veteran of the 70's...in LA no less, we relied on word of mouth, knowledgable record store (member those?) clerks, and publications such as Melody Maker, Creem, Rolling Stone, and of course the fun, but often unreliable method of choosing cool album covers.

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